Eating Italiano in Columbus

For those that actually read my random musings here on this board, I wrote about some local restaurants in the Columbus area that had more American style specialties. This time, I would like to cover some great places for Italian food within a 5 minute drive of OSU’s campus.

Carsonie’s is a niche pizzeria style restaurant. They have a good product and they know it, therefore the casual yet intimate, small dining room and bar is perfect for the mood they try and represent. They feature a fair amount of traditional Italian dishes, as well as salads, seafood and soups. But, the reason you go to Carsonie’s is for the pizza and Stromboli. I decided to try the traditional Stromboli while my friend created his own spicy pepper pizza. The Stromboli was excellent, well worth the wait (which was about 20 minutes after ordering) due to the perfection on how it is baked. Comes with dipping sauce and just enough of a portion to satisfy someone with a decent appetite for dinner. My friend reported the pizza was tasty as well. Prices are fair, I think with a beer and Stromboli look to drop around $15. Good stuff.

I walked in the Z Cucina with a couple of my friends and immediately felt under dressed. This is most definitely an upper-end Italian restaurant perfect to take your significant other for a special occasion. The menu is completely seasonal so don’t expect it to be a redundant compliment similar to that of Olive Garden. Like most gourmet Italian restaurants, the menu had 15-20 entree selections, again seasonal, and in our case the menu was geared towards “Fall” flavors (squash, pumpkin, ginger, etc). I went with the Classic Lasagna and I must report it was average. Perhaps it was the fact that the center of the large portion was a bit cold, but flavor wise, the use of homemade sauce and hand made Italian sausage surely saved the day after the cooler interior of my meal. The price on a glass of wine and the meal will run you easily near the $25-30 mark for one, I think on most good nights this place has great food and is worth a shot for a special occasion or to simply celebrate round 1 of SMF finals done.